Arts Funding Snapshot: GIA’s Annual Research on Support for Arts and Culture

Foundation Grants to Arts and Culture, 2016

Reina Mukai

Public Funding for the Arts, 2018

Ryan Stubbs and Patricia Mullaney-Loss

This document was published as part of GIA Reader, Volume 30, No. 1 (Winter 2019).

© 2019 Grantmakers in the Arts

Other articles from past GIA Readers, proceedings from past GIA conferences, and additional publications of interest are available at www.giarts.org

A Journal on Arts Philanthropy

Vol. 30 No. 1, Winter 2019

Grantmakers in the Arts

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Foundation Grants to Arts and Culture, 2016A One-Year Snapshot

Reina Mukai

On February 1, 2019, Foundation Center and GuideStar joined forces to become Candid, a 501(c)3 organization. Learn more at Candid.org.

This year’s snapshot of arts funding is the second that utilizes a broader approach to capturing infor-mation about arts funding. This broader approach looks at both the primary and secondary purposes of a grant, while prior analyses focused only on those grants identified as having a primary purpose of arts. For example, a grant awarded to a youth organization to develop leadership skills in ado-lescents through a local community theater pro-gram may be tagged with both an arts and youth development code. In previous years if this grant had been coded as having a primary focus of youth development, it would not have been included as an arts grant. With the new broader approach, this grant would be included in the arts analysis. Because the distinction between the primary and secondary purposes of a grant is in many cases arbitrary, this strategy ensures that all arts-related grants will be included in our analyses.

In 2016, giving by the approximately 86,000 active US foundations rose 10 percent to $68.9 billion. Among 1,000 of the largest US independent, cor-porate, community, and grantmaking operations included in Foundation Center by Candid's 2016 FC 1000 data set, overall giving was up only 2 per-cent; however, arts and culture funding grew at a much faster rate (up 10 percent). Arts and culture remained among top foundation funding priori-ties, ranking fifth following human services. From 2011 to 2015, arts and culture ranked sixth among foundation funding priorities.

HighlightsCandid (formerly Foundation Center) offers these key findings from GIA’s seventeenth snapshot of foundation giving to arts and culture. The defini-tion of arts and culture used for this snapshot is based on Candid's (formerly Foundation Center) Philanthropy Classification System and encompasses funding for the performing arts, museums, visual arts, multidisciplinary arts, humanities, historical activities, arts services, folk arts, public arts, and cultural awareness. The findings in this snapshot are based on analysis of two closely related data

sets. The analysis of the distribution of 2016 arts and culture giving uses the latest FC 1000 data set,1 while the analysis of changes in foundation giving for the arts between 2015 and 2016 uses a matched set of foundations that are consistent between the FC 1000 for each of those two years.2

Arts funding as a share of total dollars re-mained the same in 2016. Among the 1,000 largest foundations included in Candid's (formerly Foundation Center) grants sample for 2016, arts giving totaled $3 billion, or 9 percent of overall grant dollars. Compared to the previous year, share of dollars and share of number of grants remained basically unchanged.

Foundation funding for arts and culture was up in 2016. Among a matched set of leading funders, arts funding increased 10 percent between 2015 and 2016 compared to a 2 percent increase in overall giving by these foundations.

The size of the median arts grant was down. The median arts and culture grant size — $28,600 — decreased from $30,000. This was below the $33,500 median amount for all foundation grants in the latest year.

Large grants account for more than half of arts grant dollars. Large arts grants of $500,000 and more captured 63 percent of total grant dollars for the arts in 2016, up from 58 percent in 2015.

Relative to overall giving, a larger share of arts grant dollars provided operating sup-port. In 2016, general operating support ac-counted for 26 percent of arts and culture grant dollars. The share is significantly higher than the 16 percent share awarded to general support for overall giving.

The share of funding by top arts funders in-creased. The top twenty-five arts funders by giving amount provided 40 percent of total foundation arts dollars in 2016, up slightly from the 37 percent share reported in 2015. The share of arts giving accounted for by the top funders has remained relatively consistent for the past decade.

Please note: It is important to keep in mind that the foundation grantmaking examined here repre-sents only one source of arts financing. It does not examine arts support from earned income, govern-ments, individual donors, or the business commu-nity. This analysis also looks only at foundation arts support for nonprofit organizations, and not for individual artists, commercial arts enterprises, or informal and unincorporated activities.

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Specific FindingsOverall foundation dollars for the arts. The foundations included in Candid's (formerly

Foundation Center) 2016 FC 1000 data set awarded 20,525 arts and culture grants, totaling just over $3 billion, or 9 percent of overall grant dollars (figure 1). This share was consistent with 2015. Similarly, the share of number of arts grants remained nearly unchanged at 12 percent. Among a matched subset of 883 funders, grant dollars for the arts increased 10 percent between 2015 and 2016, compared to a 2 percent increase in grant dollars overall. Among the other top-ranked subject areas by grant dollars, only philanthropy and nonprofit management and international relations reported higher increases in dollars (figure 2).

The impact of exceptionally large grants. Every year and in all funding areas, a few very large grants can skew overall totals, creating distor-tions in long-term grantmaking trends. In 2016, twenty-one arts and culture grants provided at least $10 million, and instances where these grants had a notable impact on grantmaking patterns are identified throughout this analysis. Yet despite the potential fluctuations caused by these exceptional grants, Candid (formerly Foundation Center) data in all fields have always included them, providing consistency over time. In addition, Candid (formerly Foundation Center) provides statistics based on share of number of grants, which are not skewed by exceptionally large grants.

Corporate foundations represent an impor-tant source of support for arts and culture. Corporate foundations account for roughly 7 per-cent of overall US private and community founda-tion giving, and these larger corporate foundations included in the 2016 grants sample provided 5 percent of grant dollars for the arts (figure 3). Ac-tual grant dollars totaled $140 million. By number,

FIGURE 1. Percentage of grant dollars by major field of giving, 2016*

Source: Foundation Center by Candid, 2019. Based on all grants of $10,000 or more awarded by 1,000 of the largest foundations representing approxi-mately half of total giving by all US foundations. Includes areas of giving representing at least 5 percent of grant dollars.* Grants may occasionally be for multiple issue areas and would thereby be counted more than once.

Education

Health

Arts andculture

Human services

Environmentand animals

Philanthropyand nonprofitmanagement

Community and economic

development

Internationalrelations 5%

0% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%5%

7%

8%

9%

11%

12%

26%

26%

Change in number of grantsChange in dollar amount

Source: Foundation Center by Candid, 2019. Based on all grants of $10,000 or more awarded by a matched sample of 883 of the largest foundations. Includes areas of giving representing at least 5 percent of grant dollars in 2015.* Grants may occasionally be for multiple issue areas and would thereby be counted more than once.

FIGURE 2. Change in giving by major field of giving, 2015 to 2016*

All giving

Education

Health

Arts andculture

Human services

Environmentand animals

Philanthropyand nonprofitmanagement

Community and economic

development

Internationalrelations

2%4%

-11%-6%

8%5%

8%-1%

5%0%

10%2%

30%10%

2%1%

26%3%

-15% -10% -5% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

Independent75%

Operating2%Corporate

5%

Community19%

Source: Foundation Center by Candid, 2019. Based on all grants of $10,000 or more awarded by 1,000 of the largest foundations representing approximately half of total giving by all US foundations.

FIGURE 3. Arts grant dollars by foundation type, 2016

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corporate foundations allocated 2,283 grants, or 11 percent, of the overall number of arts grants in 2016. Please note that these figures do not include direct corporate giving; the amount that corpora-tions contribute to the arts is undoubtedly higher.

Grants by Arts SubfieldFunding for performing arts accounted for one-third of all foundation arts dollars in 2016 (figure 4), surpassing the share reported for museums, which was 29 percent). From the start of the 1980s until 1997, the performing arts have consistently received more foundation support than museums. However, museums surpassed the performing arts by share in the late 1990s to early 2000s and several times in recent years (2010, 2013, and 2014). More study would be needed to adequately understand the underlying reasons for the shifts in share be-tween these two fields of activity. These reasons could include, for example, the entry onto the scene of new and large arts funders, extraordinarily large grants, the contribution of valuable art collec-tions, and new capital projects at museums.

Giving to performing arts. In 2016, among a matched set of funders, performing arts grant dollars increased 15 percent compared to 2015, while the number of grants rose 3 percent. A total of 8,696 grants were awarded for the performing arts by foundations in the set — close to double the number reported for museums. In general, the average performing arts grant tends to be smaller in size than the average museum grant (around $120,000 versus $200,000 in 2016). The largest share of giving to the performing arts supported

theaters and performing arts centers. The largest performing arts grant in the latest sample was a $36 million award from the Holland Foundation to the Omaha Performing Arts Society. Included within the performing arts is support for perform-ing arts education, which totaled $46.6 million in 2016. (See “Giving to multidisciplinary arts,” below, for a figure on foundation grant dollars supporting other types of arts education.)

Giving to museums. In 2016, museums benefited from 4,507 grants totaling $880 million awarded by the 1,000 largest foundations included in the FC 1000 data set. Nearly half of funding supported art museums. Among a matched set of funders, grant dollars allocated to museums was up 13 percent be-tween 2015 and 2016, while the number of grants increased 6 percent. The largest museum grant in 2016 was a $30 million grant from Andrew W. Mel-lon Foundation to the National Gallery of Art to es-tablish endowments on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the gallery’s opening, with the intention of helping the gallery secure several of its most important programs in perpetuity and catalyz-ing major support from other donors.

Giving to the humanities. In 2016, the humani-ties benefited from 1,016 grants totaling $246 million awarded by the 1,000 largest foundations included in the FC 1000 data set.3 Funding for this area accounted for 8 percent of arts grant dollars in 2016, up slightly from the 7 percent share captured in 2015. Among a matched set of funders, grant dollars awarded for the humanities increased 34 percent, while the number of grants awarded was up 10 percent.

Giving to historic preservation. Support for historic preservation increased 45 percent between 2015 and 2016 among a matched set of funders, while the number of grants awarded held steady.4 Among the largest grants awarded for historic preservation in the latest year was a $9.2 mil-lion grant from the Alphawood Foundation to the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation for the restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple. Overall, historic preservation benefited from 1,485 grants totaling $240.8 million in 2016.

Giving to multidisciplinary arts. The share of arts giving for multidisciplinary arts fell to 7 per-cent in 2016 from 9 percent in 2015.5 Grant dollars awarded for multidisciplinary arts also declined 12 percent between 2015 and 2016 among the matched set of funders. Among the various sub-categories of multidisciplinary arts, arts education

Source: Foundation Center by Candid, 2019. Based on all grants of $10,000 or more awarded by 1,000 of the largest foundations representing approxi-mately half of total giving by all US foundations. * Grants may occasionally be for multiple issue areas and would thereby be counted more than once. ** Includes giving for folk arts, public arts, and cultural awareness.

FIGURE 4. Arts and culture, giving to subfields, 2016*

21%

5%

8%

8%

29%

34%

Arts(multipurpose)

Humanities

Visual arts

Other arts**

Historicalpreservation

Museums

Performing arts

7%

0% 10% 20% 40%5% 15% 25% 30% 35%

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(excluding performing arts education) totaled $225 million in the latest year.

Giving to the visual arts. Among a matched set of funders, grant dollars for the visual arts and architecture decreased 13 percent between 2015 and 2016, while the number of grants for the field was up 6 percent. The visual arts and architecture benefited from $160 million in 2016, including a $5.8 million grant from the Moody Foundation to Rice University for assistance with the construction of a new Center for the Arts — a performance, classroom, and exhibition space — that will ad-vance cross-university collaboration and innovative research in the visual and performing arts.

Grants by Support StrategyAn important caveat to report with regard to the allocation of foundation dollars by specific support strategy is that for roughly a quarter of arts grant dollars in the 2016 Candid (formerly Foundation Center) sample, the support strategy could not be identified. This means that modest differences in percentages may not be reliable. (The grant records available to Candid (formerly Foundation Center) often lack the information necessary to identify the support strategy. For example, it is of-ten the case that the only source of data on grants is the 990-PF tax return, and this tends to be less complete than other forms of grant reporting.)

The arts compared to other foundation fields of giving. The three largest categories of support tracked by Candid (formerly Founda-tion Center) are program support, general oper-ating support, and capital support.

Program support accounted for the largest share of arts grant dollars in 2016, at 27 percent of all arts funding. Special programs and projects typi-cally receive one of the largest shares of arts and culture grants and grant dollars. In fact, the same is

TABLE 1. Distribution of grants by support strategy, 2016*

Dollar No. of Support strategy amount % grants %Capacity-building and technical assistance 153,322,768 5.1 568 2.8Capital and infrastructure 392,704,171 13.1 1,037 5.1 Building acquisitions 5,062,500 0.2 2 – Building and renovations 127,065,611 4.2 205 1.0 Capital campaigns 79,762,898 2.7 149 0.7 Collections acquisitions 14,895,133 0.5 13 0.1 Collections management and preservation 21,645,584 0.7 40 0.2 Equipment 9,006,984 0.3 53 0.3 Facilities maintenance 2,750,000 0.1 4 – Information technology 4,689,000 0.2 31 0.2 Land acquisitions 3,250,000 0.1 3 – Rent – – – – Other capital and Infrastructure 138,551,903 4.6 556 2.7Financial sustainability 273,023,908 9.1 792 3.9 Annual campaigns 4,762,410 0.2 60 0.3 Debt reduction 12,285,843 0.4 11 0.1 Earned income 1,750,000 0.1 2 – Emergency funds 2,316,667 0.1 5 – Endowments 139,767,412 4.7 64 0.3 Financial services 15,000 – 1 – Fundraising 105,004,118 3.5 433 2.1 Sponsorships 615,450 – 4 – Other financial sustainability 59,948,758 2.0 229 1.1General support 769,562,168 25.6 5,105 24.9Individual development and student aid 110,384,381 3.7 543 2.6Leadership and professional Development 40,571,367 1.4 138 0.7Network-building and collaboration 65,395,738 2.2 315 1.5Policy, advocacy, and systems reform 45,449,277 1.5 239 1.2 Advocacy 21,817,549 0.7 139 0.7 Coalition building 215,000 – 3 – Equal access 13,837,479 0.5 71 0.3 Ethics and accountability 159,800 – 3 – Grassroots organizing 5,400,469 0.2 20 0.1 Litigation 375,000 – 1 – Public policy and systems reform 11,722,677 0.4 52 0.3 Other policy, advocacy, and systems reform 21,917,100 0.7 102 0.5 Publishing and productions 275,030,872 9.2 1609 7.8Product and service development 238,500 – 5 – Program support 814,638,333 27.1 5,603 27.3Public engagement and marketing 123,458,464 4.1 447 2.2Research and evaluation 73,465,010 2.4 214 1.0Other specified strategies 97,895,973 3.3 521 2.5Not specified 736,568,060 24.5 6,974 34.0 Total 3,003,305,217 100.0 20,525 100.0

Source: Foundation Center by Candid, 2019. Based on all grants of $10,000 or more awarded by 1,000 of the largest foundations represent-ing approximately half of total giving by all US foundations.* Grants may occasionally be for multiple support stategies, e.g., for

new works and for endowment, and would thereby be counted twice.

TABLE 2. Arts grants by grant size, 2016 No. of Dollar Grant range grants % amount %

$5 million and over 58 0.3 $752,767,135 25.1$1 million – under $5 million 478 2.3 798,319,787 26.6$500,000 – under $1 million 530 2.6 332,602,221 11.1$100,000 – under $500,000 3,534 17.2 661,063,860 22.0$50,000 – under $100,000 3,333 16.2 206,159,305 6.9$25,000 – under $50,000 4,536 22.1 139,548,569 4.6$10,000 – under $25,000 8,056 39.2 112,844,340 3.8 Total 20,525 100.0 $3,003,305,217 100.0

Source: Foundation Center by Candid, 2019. Based on all grants of $10,000 or more awarded by 1,000 of the largest foundations represent-ing approximately half of total giving by all US foundations.

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true in most of the major fields, such as health and education, where program support consistently ac-counts for one of the largest shares of funding.

General operating support received the second largest share of arts grants dollars. The shares of grant dollars and number of grants allocated for this support strategy in 2016 were higher for arts and culture — 26 percent and 25 percent, respectively — than the overall share directed to operating support by FC 1000 foundations, which accounted for roughly 16 percent of grant dollars and 20 percent of the number of grants.

Capital support accounted for the third largest share of arts grant dollars. Similar to general sup-port, the share of grant dollars allocated for this type of support was also higher for arts and culture (13 percent) than for grants overall (7 percent). Grants for capital support are larger on average than awards for program and general operating

support, and exceptionally large capital grants can have a pronounced effect on the distribution of funding by support strategy.

Arts grants by specific types of support. Table 1 provides a breakdown of more specific support strategies within the larger support categories and lists both the specific dollar value and number of grants made in each type. As for all data in the “snapshot,” it is important to keep in mind that this table includes only grants of $10,000 or more awarded to organizations by a sample of the top 1,000 foundations by total giving. It is also impor-tant to note that about a quarter of the arts grant dollars in this sample did not have a specified sup-port strategy.

Grants by Grant SizeMedian grant size. The median, or “typical,” grant amount for arts and culture in 2016 was $28,600, which was below the median amount

TABLE 3. Twenty-five largest arts, culture, and media funders, 2016 Arts as Number Arts Total percent Arts capital Arts other of arts grant grant of total support support Rank Foundation State grants dollars dollars dollars dollars* dollars*

1. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation NY 267 $208,595,850 $285,451,300 73.1 $16,779,100 $205,556,350 2. Samuel & Jean Frankel Foundation MI 4 161,963,059 166,148,059 97.5 – 161,463,059 3. Bloomberg Philanthropies NY 549 89,983,764 691,304,252 13.0 2,700,000 65,291,060 4. The Columbus Foundation and Affiliated Organizations OH 376 71,090,820 281,293,401 25.3 79,124 50,254,100 5. Lilly Endowment Inc. IN 69 62,098,680 500,818,994 12.4 6,399,800 53,902,258 6. Ford Foundation NY 126 53,118,242 526,043,084 10.1 2,100,000 52,118,242 7. Greater Kansas City Community Foundation MO 84 51,871,124 195,866,218 26.5 – 2,384,481 8. Silicon Valley Community Foundation CA 309 49,363,497 1,357,397,640 3.6 265,000 27,226,383 9. The Holland Foundation NE 15 41,810,847 63,926,761 65.4 – 41,540,150 10. The Crawford Taylor Foundation MO 14 40,743,510 46,938,760 86.8 – 9,003,510 11. The Moody Foundation TX 14 35,189,478 69,055,429 51.0 33,890,978 1,123,500 12. The William Penn Foundation PA 62 31,066,450 206,885,592 15.0 7,919,000 29,658,950 13. The Chicago Community Trust IL 375 27,078,633 212,695,792 12.7 1,792,000 12,934,368 14. The Brown Foundation, Inc. TX 178 25,959,500 62,723,518 41.4 16,668,000 24,033,000 15. The Freedom Forum, Inc. DC 2 24,107,950 24,107,950 100.0 – 24,107,950 16. The Shubert Foundation, Inc. NY 472 23,965,000 25,440,000 94.2 – 23,460,000 17. Kinder Foundation TX 19 23,741,277 39,307,034 60.4 19,816,340 1,285,699 18. The San Francisco Foundation CA 169 23,248,213 129,977,462 17.9 1,888,000 11,478,202 19. Doris Duke Charitable Foundation NY 72 22,240,281 78,594,881 28.3 – 13,396,593 20. Walton Family Foundation AR 60 21,903,846 440,054,621 5.0 – 6,519,126 21. The Wallace Foundation NY 82 21,213,188 116,289,024 18.2 – 12,332,484 22. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation CA 111 20,698,370 362,823,345 5.7 2,075,000 19,485,000 23. John Templeton Foundation PA 49 19,803,279 149,949,450 13.2 – 13,051,100 24. Avenir Foundation, Inc. CO 9 19,261,284 48,578,238 39.7 – 19,261,284 25. Robert W. Woodruff Foundation GA 4 18,394,763 141,741,856 13.0 18,394,763 16,144,763 Total 3,491 $1,188,510,905 $6,223,412,661 19.1 $130,767,105 $897,011,612

Source: Foundation Center by Candid, 2019. Based on all grants of $10,000 or more awarded by 1,000 of the largest foundations representing approximately half of total giving by all US foundations.* Grants may provide capital support and other types of support. In these cases, grants would be counted in both totals. Figures include only grants that could

be coded as providing specific types of support.

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for all foundation grants ($33,500).6 Prior to last year, when the median amount for the arts was $30,000, the median amount had remained consis-tent at $25,000 since the early 1990s. While this is the second year in a row that the median arts grant amount has exceeded $25,000, more study would be required to determine whether this is a lasting upswing in the size of arts grants.

Small and midsized grants. Roughly two-thirds, or 61 percent, of all arts grants in the 2016 sample

were for amounts between $10,000 and $49,999, nearly unchanged from the 2015 share (table 2). The share of midsized arts grants — $50,000 to $499,999 — also remained fairly consistent, ac-counting for about one-third of arts grants.

Large grants. The share of larger arts grants — $500,000 and over — remained consistent at 5 percent of the total number of arts grants in 2016. Their share of total grant dollars increased

TABLE 4. Top thirty-five foundations by share of arts giving out of overall giving, 2016 Arts as Arts Arts other Number Arts Total percent capital types of Fdn of arts grant grant of total support support Rank Foundation State type* grants dollars dollars dollars dollars** dollars**

1. The Freedom Forum, Inc. DC OP 2 $24,107,950 $24,107,950 100.0 – $24,107,950 2. David H. Koch Charitable Foundation KS IN 1 10,000,000 10,000,000 100.0 $10,000,000 – 3. The Carmel Hill Fund NY IN 19 6,724,927 6,724,927 100.0 – 6,724,927 4. Johnson Art and Education Foundation NJ IN 2 5,833,006 5,833,006 100.0 – 5,833,006 5. Bernard Osher Foundation CA IN 5 4,811,649 4,811,649 100.0 – 4,811,649 6. The SHS Foundation NY IN 44 6,132,166 6,257,166 98.0 – 1,972,166 7. Samuel & Jean Frankel Foundation MI IN 4 161,963,059 166,148,059 97.5 – 161,463,059 8. Jerome Foundation Inc. MN IN 68 2,819,496 2,890,596 97.5 – 2,819,496 9. Colburn Foundation CA IN 58 6,264,500 6,514,500 96.2 10,000 1,067,000 10. The Shubert Foundation, Inc. NY IN 472 23,965,000 25,440,000 94.2 – 23,460,000 11. The Walt and Lilly Disney Foundation CA IN 2 7,653,544 8,138,544 94.0 – – 12. Lloyd Rigler Lawrence E. Deutsch Foundation CA IN 15 6,315,000 6,894,560 91.6 – 335,000 13. Howard Gilman Foundation, Inc. NY IN 152 10,955,000 11,970,000 91.5 – 2,350,000 14. The Crawford Taylor Foundation MO IN 14 40,743,510 46,938,760 86.8 – 9,003,510 15. The Philecology Foundation TX IN 1 10,998,408 13,020,408 84.5 – – 16. Dunard Fund USA, Ltd. IL CS 10 6,938,290 8,389,400 82.7 – 6,938,290 17. Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation MO IN 77 8,637,762 10,490,262 82.3 1,070,000 5,616,780 18. Millicent and Eugene Bell Foundation MA IN 1 3,500,000 4,372,000 80.1 – 3,500,000 19. J Paul Getty Trust CA OP 120 10,820,954 13,549,762 79.9 – 9,493,712 20. Gilder Foundation, Inc. NY IN 29 16,625,000 21,131,000 78.7 – 20,000 21. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts NY IN 137 9,714,889 12,350,994 78.7 100,000 8,217,389 22. Arison Arts Foundation FL IN 14 6,193,879 7,948,879 77.9 – 6,193,879 23. Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation, Inc. AR IN 12 2,114,000 2,781,210 76.0 700,000 1,614,000 24. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation NY IN 267 208,595,850 285,451,300 73.1 16,779,100 205,556,350 25. The Packard Humanities Institute CA OP 14 7,583,212 10,731,112 70.7 262,600 7,288,612 26. The Kovner Foundation FL IN 10 9,381,081 13,572,671 69.1 – 1,725,000 27. Harold & Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation OR IN 28 2,188,000 3,170,800 69.0 200,000 780,000 28. Daniel and Pamella DeVos Foundation MI IN 12 7,233,000 10,894,500 66.4 – 7,233,000 29. The Holland Foundation NE IN 15 41,810,847 63,926,761 65.4 – 41,540,150 30. Alphawood Foundation IL IN 113 16,439,194 25,541,117 64.4 9,759,400 16,064,794 31. Wilf Family Foundation NJ IN 3 820,000 1,275,000 64.3 – – 32. The Maxine and Jack Zarrow Family Foundation OK IN 6 5,150,000 8,075,055 63.8 5,000,000 5,060,000 33. Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family Foundation MA IN 4 5,100,500 8,090,500 63.0 1,600,000 1,630,500 34. The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund VA IN 8 5,460,000 8,762,000 62.3 5,335,000 125,000 35. Champagne Family Charitable Trust IN IN 1 60,000 98,500 60.9 – 60,000

Source: Foundation Center by Candid, 2019. Based on all grants of $10,000 or more awarded by 1,000 of the largest foundations representing approximately half of total giving by all US foundations.* IN = Independent; OP = Operating; CS = Corporate** Grants may provide capital support and other types of support. In these cases, grants would be counted in both totals. Figures include only grants that

could be coded as providing specific types of support.

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to 63 percent, compared to 58 percent in 2015. Overall, foundations in the sample made 141 arts grants of at least $2.5 million in 2016, up from 125 grants in 2015.

In addition to the $36 million award from the Hol-land Foundation to the Omaha Performing Arts Society noted earlier, examples of other especially large grants in 2016 include Crawford Taylor Foundation’s $30 million award to the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, David H. Koch Charitable Foundation’s $10 million grant to the City Center of Music and Drama for Renovation of New York State Theater Building, and a $6 million grant to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History from the Rockefeller Foundation toward the costs of expanding its Hamilton Education Program to provide subsidized tickets to the show Hamilton for underprivileged high school students, and to distribute accompanying educational materials that integrate theatrical performance and the study of American history.

The twenty-five largest arts funders. The top twenty-five arts funders by giving amount provided 40 percent of the total arts dollars in Candid's (for-merly Foundation Center) 2016 sample, above the 37 percent share from 2015 (table 3). Overall, the share of giving accounted for by the top twenty-five arts funders has fluctuated between 33 and 40 percent since the end of the 1990s.

Top foundations by share of arts giving out of overall giving. Of the foundations that com-mitted large percentages of their grant dollars to arts and culture, many are the smaller foundations in the sample (table 4). Among the top one hun-dred foundations ranked by share of arts giving out of total giving, about half (fifty-two) gave less than $5 million in total arts grant dollars in 2016.

Giving for International Cultural ExchangeGrant dollars supporting international cultural exchange increased 42 percent between 2015

and 2016 among a matched subset of funders. In 2016, foundations awarded 118 grants related to international cultural exchange totaling $20.2 mil-lion. The largest award was a $3 million grant from the Ford Foundation to the Belgium-based Culture Resource to provide general support to promote ar-tistic creativity in the Arab region, build the capac-ity of nascent and emerging cultural institutions, and enhance the organization’s growth.

Reina Mukai joined Candid's (formerly Foundation Center) research department in 2006 and currently serves as Knowl-

edge Services manager. In this role, she works on a range of research and data-driven projects. Mukai has authored numerous reports on national, regional, and special-topic trends in the field of philanthropy, among them Giving in Illinois, “Arts Funding Snapshot: GIA’s Annual Research on

Support for Arts and Culture,” and the Key Fact Sheet series. She also works with partners on custom consulting services

and research projects.

NOTES

1. Foundation Center by Candid's 2016 FC 1000 set includes all of the grants of $10,000 or more reported by 1,000 of the largest US independent, corporate, community, and grantmaking operating foundations by total giving. For community foundations, the set includes only discretionary grants and donor-advised grants (when provided by the funder). The set excludes grants to individuals. This set accounts for approximately half of giving by all of the roughly 86,000 active US grantmaking foundations. Grant amounts may represent the full authorized amount of the grant or the amount paid in that year, depending on the information made available by each foundation.

2. Between 2015 and 2016, the composition of the FC1000 has changed, which could distort year-to-year fluctuations in grant dollars targeting specific issue areas. To account for these potential distortions year to year, Candid (formerly Foundation Center) has analyzed changes in giving based on a subset of 883 funders for which we had 2015 and 2016 data.

3. Included within the humanities is funding for art history, history and archaeology, classical and foreign languages, linguistics, literature, philoso-phy, and theology.

4. Included within historic preservation is support for archaeology, art history, modern and classical languages, philosophy, ethics, theology, and compara-tive religion.

5. Included within multidisciplinary arts is support for multidisciplinary cen-ters, arts councils, artist’s services, arts administration, arts exchange, and arts education.

6. The median — meaning that half of the grants are above, and half are below the amount — is generally acknowledged to be a more representa-tive measure of the typical grant than the mean, or “average,” because the median is not influenced by extreme high or low amounts.

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Public Funding for the Arts, 2018

Ryan Stubbs and Patricia Mullaney-Loss

Direct public funding for the arts is best under-stood by tracking congressional allocations to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), legislative appropriations to state arts agencies, and local gov-ernment funds going to local arts agencies. These entities distribute public grants and services to art-ists, creatives, and cultural organizations across the nation. Federal, state, and local public funding for the arts totaled $1.37 billion in FY2018.

2018 Funding LevelsThe federal government, states, and localities ap-propriated a combined $1.37 billion to the arts in FY2018, for a total per capita investment of $4.18. Comprising this total were

• $152.8 million in appropriations to the NEA, an increase of 2 percent from FY2017;

• $355.2 million in legislative appropriations to state and jurisdictional arts agencies, an increase of 0.1 percent from FY2017; and

• $860.0 million in funds allocated by local gov-ernments to local arts agencies,1 an increase of 4 percent from FY2017.

Trends over TimeIn nominal dollars (not adjusted for inflation), public funding for the arts increased by 24 percent over the past twenty years. State and local fund-ing patterns correlate with periods of economic growth and recession. State arts agency aggregate appropriations reached a high point in 2001, while

local funding reported a historical high point this year. Federal funding for the NEA has displayed incremental growth after sustaining large cuts in the mid-1990s.

Despite these nominal dollar increases, public fund-ing for the arts has not kept pace with inflation. When adjusting for inflation, total public funding decreased by 16.1 percent over the past twenty years. In constant dollar terms, state arts agency appropriations decreased by 35 percent, local fund-ing contracted by 8.4 percent, and federal funds increased by 5.4 percent (figure 1).

Looking AheadPreliminary data on FY2019 appropriations to state arts agencies indicate that funding will increase by 2 percent. Appropriations to state arts agencies are constantly in flux, as midyear changes will occur. However, these figures suggest this will be the fifth year in a row funding has remained relatively flat at the state level, even with states seeing robust aggregate growth in general fund revenues.2

As of this writing, Congress has not passed a fed-eral budget for FY2019. Continuing resolutions have kept funding for the NEA at FY2018 levels until Congress enacts the spending package for the Department of the Interior, the budget bill in which the NEA is placed.

Although the NEA and many other federal agen-cies are affected by political stalemates (a notable example of which was the recent thirty-five-day partial government shutdown in early 2019), the NEA has earned broad support in Congress, from elected officials across the political spectrum. Both the House and Senate approved a $2 million dollar increase for the agency for FY2019, which would

$900

$800

$700

$600

$500

$400

$300

$200

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Total federal appropri-ation to the National Endowment for the Arts

Total legislative appropriations to state arts agencies

Estimated total direct expenditures on the arts by local governments

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FIGURE 1. Federal, state, and local government arts funding, nominal and inflation-adjusted dollars, 1999–2018

2016 2017 20181999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 20152014

Inflation-adjusted figures are represented by corresponding lines below each source. Inflation adjustments are calculated using Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures with a base year of 1999..

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raise the agency’s appropriation to $155 million. However, this increase will not be realized unless the president and the new Congress can pass a new budget for the remainder of FY2019.

Local government revenues are estimated based on past and current data collection efforts by Americans for the Arts. If the rate of increase of local government funding estimates continues to stay on pace, local funding will reach close to $900 million in FY2019. Budget conditions of cities and counties remain relatively robust at this time, but fiscal analysts observe that municipal budgets may be approaching structural limits of expan-sion.3 So it will be important to monitor whether local spending on the arts may experience slower growth over the long term.

Implications for GrantmakingAppropriations to state and local arts agencies — and, by extension, available grant dollars — rise and fall in accordance with government fiscal con-ditions, particularly revenue projections. For exam-ple, trends in state arts agency grantmaking track closely with appropriations to state arts agencies over time.4 When state arts agency appropriations declined by 26 percent during the Great Recession between 2008 and 2012, state arts agency grant outlays declined by a nearly identical 27 percent.

Direct federal grants from the NEA totaled 2,422 and $65.8 million in FY2017. Another $51 million from the NEA, or about 40 percent of NEA’s appro-priation, was awarded to state and regional agen-cies for further grantmaking and related activities. State arts agencies in turn awarded 21,296 grants and $282.9 million in award dollars in FY2017, and regional arts organizations also made 1,226 awards, totaling $16.2 million.

Local governments spend the most dollars on arts and culture when compared to states and the NEA,

but local arts agencies are less likely to focus their services on grantmaking. According to the 2015 lo-cal arts agency census from Americans for the Arts, 53 percent of local arts agencies provide direct community investment in local artists or arts orga-nizations. Larger percentages of local arts agencies support direct culture programming, such as public art and festivals, as well as service provision such as arts marketing. Of the local arts agencies that are involved in grantmaking, 92 percent do so for cultural and artistic programming, and 49 percent provide operating support.

Private funders contribute the largest amount of dollars to artists and cultural organizations in the United States. In 2015, foundation funding for the largest 1,000 foundations totaled approximately $2.5 billion dollars and 19,635 arts and culture grants. Candid (formerly Foundation Center) esti-mates indicated that US foundation giving overall increased by 5 percent in 2015; 86,000 active foun-dations gave a total of $62.8 billion in 2015. How-ever, giving from the largest 1,000 foundations to arts and culture remained stagnant, accounting for 9 percent of all funding.

With this amalgamation of grantmaking policies and agendas, it is difficult to find comparative data across public and private sectors. Standard-ized data collection practices are not employed at the local arts agency level. However, using pub-lished data from state arts agencies, the NEA, and the 1,000 largest foundations, there are a handful of categories for which we can approximate rela-tive investments.

Foundations and state arts agencies make signifi-cant grant investments in operating support. Foun-dations spend approximately 20 percent of their arts and culture grant dollars on operating support. In terms of the percentage of dollars invested, state arts agencies make the largest commitment

Foundation Centerby Candid 1000

National Endowmentfor the Arts

State ArtsAgencies

Dollars Awards Dollars Awards Dollars Awards

Operating support $509,882,288 4,896 N/A N/A $124,710,034 5,712

Museums $740,000,000 4,183 $3,927,064 127 $31,934,712 1,268

Capital and infrastructure $329,624,291 989 N/A N/A $3,524,147 183

Arts education $110,200,000 N/A $5,688,955 192 $79,190,870 9,710

Individual artists and fellowships N/A N/A $1,600,000 74 $8,426,931 2,402

Source: GIA Reader, vol. 29, no. 1, Winter 2018. Foundation Center by Candid Sample, 2015, excludes grants of less than $10,000; NEA arts.gov grants search, FY2017, excludes partnership awards to state arts agencies and regional arts organizations; SAA Final Descriptive Report records, FY2017.

TABLE 1. Comparative grantmaking statistics by selected award types

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to operational support. Forty-four percent of state arts agency grant dollars and 25.7 percent of all state arts agency awards went to operational support in FY2017.

The NEA invests over $51 million dollars in state arts agencies and regional art organizations. These dollars are not operating support for individual arts organizations, but they help enable state arts agen-cies and local arts agencies to make investments in operating support by increasing the total dollars agencies have available for grants and services (table 1).

Outside of operating support, it is possible to compare a few other grant categories and activity types. Foundations, states, and the NEA all make investments in museums and arts education. A key contrast between public and private sectors is investment in capital construction and physical

infrastructure. The NEA does not provide funding for capital construction, and relatively few state arts agencies make grants for facilities. Foundations bear the load for funding physical cultural infra-structure in the United States. Another challenging topic for grantmakers is investment in individual artists and fellowships.5 The NEA makes a few selected investments in individual artists through National Heritage Fellows, Jazz Masters, and Literature Fellowships but otherwise is statutorily restricted from awarding grant funds to individual

artists. Many state arts agencies devote a portion of their grants to individual artists.6 In FY2017, state arts agencies made 2,402 awards to individual art-ists. When compared to other types of applicants, awards to individual artists were the second most frequent type of award made by state arts agen-cies. Private foundations also fund individuals, but comparison data are not available.

Grantmaking by Award Size and DistributionThe distribution patterns of government arts grants reflect a priority public sector objective of attaining maximum geographic coverage. Given the modest appropriations described above, this often neces-sitates the mechanism of awarding many grants that are small in size. To illustrate this, state arts agencies have a median award value of $4,550. Al-though the median NEA award amount is $20,000, 58 percent of all NEA grants are less than $25,000 in size (table 2).

When considering reach to rural communities, a US Department of Agriculture report found that 5.5 percent of large foundations’ grant dollars go to rural areas. Although the latest Giving USA 2018 report suggests that some foundations are increasing their focus on rural development, sig-nificant funding gaps remain, especially for rural areas in the South.7 Comparatively, 14 percent of state arts funding and 13 percent of NEA fund-ing goes to rural communities, which is consistent with the percentage of the US population residing in these areas.

Funding economically disadvantaged communities is another important aspect of grantmaking equity. The majority of state arts agency awards also go to counties with higher levels of residents living

Foundation Centerby Candid 1000

National Endowmentfor the Arts

State ArtsAgencies

Grant range Numberof grants

Percentof totalgrants

Numberof grants

Percentof totalgrants

Numberof grants

Percentof totalgrants

$5 million and over 54 0.3% 0 0.0% 0 0.0%

$1 million – under $5 million 397 2.0% 1 0.0% 11 0.1%

$500,000 – under $1 million 533 2.7% 0 0.0% 25 0.1%

$100,000 – under $500,000 3,483 17.7% 63 2.6% 260 1.2%

$50,000 – under $500,000 3,178 16.2% 252 10.4% 693 3.3%

$25,000 – under $50,000 4,465 22.7% 707 29.2% 1,353 6.4%

$10,000 – under $25,000 7,528 38.3% 1,387 57.3% 4,086 19.2%

Below $10,000 N/A N/A 12 0.5% 14,867 69.8%

Source: GIA Reader, vol. 29, no. 1, Winter 2018. Foundation Center by Candid Sample, 2015, excludes grants of less than $10,000; NEA arts.gov grants search, FY2017, excludes partnership awards to state arts agencies and regional arts organizations; SAA Final Descriptive Report records, FY2017.

TABLE 2. Grant distribution by size of award and grantor

Twenty-one percent of state arts agency grantees report serving individuals below the poverty line.

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below the poverty line, and 21 percent of state arts agency grantees directly serve individuals below the poverty line. The NEA reports that 40 percent of their supported activities go to high-poverty neighborhoods.8

State arts agency awards and grant dollars also serve populations of color at rates comparable to or higher than population statistics: 21 percent of grant recipients report serving African American populations, and 19 percent of recipients report serving Latinx populations. Seventy-four percent of awards and 81 percent of grant dollars go to coun-ties in which people of color make up more than a

fifth of the population. These figures do not sug-gest that public funders are achieving perfectly eq-uitable funding patterns, but these nationally ag-gregated figures give us some indication that state arts agencies grant patterns generally follow race population patterns. This type of information pro-vides an indication of how state arts agencies work toward equitable grantmaking practices; however, more research on individual programs, awards, and local communities benefiting is necessary to fully describe equitable grantmaking practices.

Complementary RolesThese data on awards and grant dollars begin to suggest a varied landscape of cultural support in the United States. Public and private institutions at every level operate independently according

to the needs of their constituencies, stakeholders, and partners. The cultural ecosystem requires both

public and private support to thrive.9 While the private sector provides the lion’s share of support, government funds are modest but important, achieving wide geographic access to cultural expe-riences and embedding the arts into many func-tions of state government.

Data limitations hinder our ability to fully compare public and private grantmaking patterns; however, our analysis indicates that different segments of the funding ecosystem fill complementary roles. Observable convergences in grantmaking patterns — such as program support and arts education — reflect the high priorities that constituents ascribe to these forms of assistance. Divergences in grant-making patterns — such as individual artist sup-port, operating support, and facility construction — indicate that each sector is playing to its unique strengths and limitations.

Ryan Stubbs is senior director of research at the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.

Patricia Mullaney-Loss is a research associate at the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.

NOTES

This profile draws on local spending estimates from Americans for the Arts, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies’ legislative appropria-tions surveys of the nation’s state and jurisdictional arts agencies, and appropriations data from the National Endowment for the Arts. As of this writing, the most recent data available about federal and local funding for the arts are from FY2018. In FY2018 and FY2019 data for state arts agen-cies are available from www.nasaa-arts.org. Constant dollar adjustments for inflation are calculated using Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures with a base year of 1999. Per capita calculations are based on national population estimates from the US Census Bureau.

1. Americans for the Arts substantially changed the methodology for collect-ing local arts agency investments through the local arts agency census in 2016. Annual estimates are used prior to 2011 and after 2016.

2. National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), Fiscal Survey of the States Fall, 2018, https://www.nasbo.org/reports-data /fiscal-survey-of-states.

3. National League of Cities (NLC), City Fiscal Conditions, 2018, https://www .nlc.org/resource/city-fiscal-conditions-2018.

4. National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA), State Arts Agency Grant-Making Statistics, 2017, http://www.nasaa-arts.org/Research/Grant -Making/index.php.

5. Grantmakers in the Arts, Support for Individual Artists, http://www.giarts .org/support-individual-artists.

6. NASAA, State Arts Agency Support for Individual Artists Fact Sheet, https: //nasaa-arts.org/nasaa_research/indivartistgrantmakingfactsheet0316/.

7. Giving USA 2018 Annual Report.

8. National Endowment for the Arts, 2017 Annual Report, https://www.arts .gov/sites/default/files/2017%20Annual%20Report.pdf.

9. Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, “Better Together; Public and Private Funding for the Arts,” Pam Breaux, https://mellon.org/resources /shared-experiences-blog/better-together-public-and-private-funding-arts/.

Seventy-four percent of state arts agency awards and 81 percent of grant dollars go to counties in which people of color make up more than a fifth of the population.

Fourteen percent of state arts agency grant dollars support programs for people in poverty.